Grasping Truth and Reality

Description

When Lesslie Newbigin returned to Britain in 1974 after years of missionary service, he observed that his homeland was as much a mission field as India, where he had spent the majority of his missionary career. He concluded that the Western world needed a missionary confrontation. Instead of the traditional approach to missions, however, Newbigin realized that the Western world needed to be confronted theologically. From his earliest days at Cambridge University, Newbigin developed the theological convictions that shaped his understanding of the Christian faith, and he used these theological convictions as criteria to evaluate the belief system of Western culture and to provide an answer to its dilemma. The Enlightenment reintroduced humanism and dualism into Western culture, which resulted on the loss of purpose and the rise of skepticism. This book discusses Newbigin's theological convictions and how they factored into both his critique of and his solution to Western culture's spiritual and worldview problems. Donald Le Roy cleverly explains Newbigin's solution to reintroduce the Christian belief system into Western culture in order to restore purpose and truth to Westerners and put them back in contact with true reality through Jesus Christ. Review "This book will make a significant contribution to the burgeoning literature on Lesslie Newbigin, 'long-time missionary to India and global ecumenical leader' whose 'importance has never been as recognized as it is today.' Newbigin's prophetic call for a missionary encounter with the modern West is here extended by Donald Le Roy Stults through a vigorous plea to the churches for an evangelistic engagement with contemporary culture in all its intellectual and social concreteness." -Geoffrey Wainwright is Robert Earl Cushman Professor of Christian Theology at Duke Divinity School, Duke University About the Author Donald Leroy Stults is a Professor in the School of Religion and Philosophy at Oklahoma Wesleyan University in Bartlesville, Oklahoma. At native of Ohio, he has lived and taught in undergraduate and graduate schools in South Korea, Philippines, and Germany, as well as short term teaching assignments in Taiwan and Albania. He is the author of Developing an Asian Evangelical Theology (1989).